“Thousands of coal miners fearing
the loss of jobs if mountaintop removal mining is curtailed or outlawed shouted
down a handful of environmentalists at crowded public hearings Tuesday on the
much-debated practice.”

It describes how the tone was set
in West Virginia,

“Truman Chafin, the Democratic
majority leader in the West Virginia Senate, kicked off the raucous atmosphere.

“‘'The lord didn't create very
many things without a purpose, but mosquitoes and the EPA come close I think,’
Chafin said to huge applause. ‘What happens to the coal and the entire nation?
Who keeps these lights on for the country if you take away 40 percent of the
coal that's mined in southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky?’”

The miners wearing hard hats
were, of course, paid to attend and disrupt the proceedings. Many are
unorganized. But the United Mine Workers also issued a statement,

“We are extremely concerned that
the decision to further delay 79 permits for Appalachian surface mining
operations will result in layoffs of our members who work at these operations in
southern West Virginia.”

Jobs have been lost in the mining
industry–but not because of environmental laws. In 1960 there were 335,000
working miners in the USA. Today morecoal is being dug with
104,000–the majority not unionized. Technology, less stringent work rules–and
destructive practices such as mountain top removal (MTR)–have been the big job
killers. Those miners were protesting job loss at the wrong address.

The mine operators are pushing to
unearth more coal than ever. In Appalachia MTR begins by clear cutting the
forest, selling or burying the timber. Then explosives are used to blast away
the top thousand feet or so of the mountain, dumping the “overburden” in to
streams and valleys. With coal veins exposed, mammoth equipment, operated by
relatively few miners, simply scoop and haul it out. When the coal is gone they
“restore” the now somewhat shorter mountain by packing overburden left in the
area back in the remaining giant hole. Level it off and lay some sod and all
legal obligations have been met.

MTR has already churned up an
area about the size of the state of Delaware. The legendary scenic beauty of
this area is gone for good. But that’s not all. By 2001, when the Bush
administration directed the EPA to stop tracking, over 700 miles of streams had
been buried by dumped overburden. It’s anybody’s guess what that number is
today. Streams still flowing show greatly increased mineral content and much
less aquatic biodiversity. There is all kinds of collateral environmental damage
from the super-sized trucks hauling the coal out. And a lot of coal dust is
spread for miles around during the explosive demolition.

For these reasons there is
growing opposition to the practice not only by environmentalists but many
“ordinary” Appalachian residents as well. They have forced the EPA to hold new
hearings even on permits already granted by the compliant Army Corps of
Engineers. That’s what led the coal bosses, and their political minions, to
silence discussion by trashing the hearings.

Physical courage is found in
abundance among miners. But fear of job loss is pushing many to choose the wrong
side in the most important struggle yet.

Coal miners don’t need to be told
that the stuff they work with is dirty and dangerous. You don’t have to go far
in coal country to find widows and orphans of miners killed in accidents on the
job, or by Black Lung disease at an early age. Sink holes caused by undermining
are common and in places underground fires in abandoned mines smolder for years.

It is only within the last couple
of decades that science–and growing numbers of the general public–have come to
understand just how dangerous coal is, not merely for the front line victims in
mining country, but for our entire planet. Besides spewing heavy metals and
other nasty things, it is the number one culprit in releasing carbon dioxide in
to our atmosphere. Along with its only marginally cleaner competitors, oil and
natural gas, coal emissions are creating the greenhouse effect that threatens to
heat the globe to far higher temperatures than humans have ever had to endure.
It’s destroying the biosphere of our children and grandchildren.

“Carbon capture” to make coal
“clean” is a fraud. Scrubbers at power plants, while lessening coal burning
induced acid rain, have dumped countless gallons of water filled with trapped
pollutants into rivers and streams-- poisoning water instead of air. Piles of
fly ash slag dot the country threatening more environmental disasters such as
hit the Tennessee Valley not long ago.

Those of us who have been
inspired by the heroic legacy of coal field unionism have to speak frankly to
those we respect and admire: There’s no ifs, ands, or buts–we’ve got to stop
burning coal, we’ve got to leave it in the ground. And that does mean lost
mining jobs.

But climate and class justice
dictates we leave no one behind. The labor and environmental movements need to
collaborate to give us acceptable options. At the same time we fight to replace
coal with solar and wind we have to guarantee new decent jobs for those engaged
in mining and transporting coal (and oil and natural gas as well.) We need to
nationalize the energy, transportation, auto, and finance industries to plan a
new sustainable economy that can both provide jobs and stop the threat of
climate catastrophe. Once such lines are clearly drawn it will become apparent
which side all working people should be on.

This coming Saturday, October 24, is an International
Day of Climate Action. Blue and white
collar workers should be standing alongside the “tree huggers” at these events,
working to build an alliance for climate justice. In Kansas City the gathering
will be in Mill Creek Park, 47 & Main, 2-3:30PM. You can find me there by the KC
Labor Party banner.

Good and Chilly
Apparently Ford workers don’t know a good deal when they see one. The headline
about the new UAW give-back deal at Ford in last Wednesday’s Detroit Free
Press read, “Gettelfinger: We got a good deal for workers.” This morning the
same paper’s lead auto story was entitled, “Workers chilly to Ford contract.”

Ford, of course, avoided the
stigma of bankruptcy and bailout embraced by GM and Chrysler. While that was
probably a sound long term business strategy it meant they missed out on the
ruthless gutting of jobs, wages, and benefits imposed on UAW workers at their
competitors by President Obama. Ford has been applying pressure on their UAW
“partners” to give them more relief to keep them “competitive” among the
companies once known as the Big Three.

The “good deal” now before Ford
workers includes:

• Removing the cap on the ratio
of bottom tier (14 dollars an hour) workers in the plants and freezing their
wages until at least 2015.

• Establishes new Mechanical
Skilled Trades Teams as a way to improve “efficiency.”

• Renounces the union’s right to
strike for wage or benefit improvements until 2015.

In return, Ford made new promises
of additional work in UAW plants and agreed to pay all current union employees a
thousand dollar bonus.

Many Ford workers think the
company, doing much better than GM and Chrysler, doesn’t deserve this level of
give-backs. They’ve seen plenty of reneging on past promised product lines. And
those who haven’t had their flame of solidarity completely extinguished by
Solidarity House know that fourteen bucks an hour for new hires was rotten when
first agreed to in 2007 and will certainly not be a living wage eight years down
the road.

We shall see.

Not Yet A Window of
Opportunity
The most inspiring labor victory in the USA in recent times was the UE
occupation of Republic Windows in Chicago. It looked like a happy ending. Their
old crooked boss is on trial for his illegal shenanigans. A new company took
over, enthusiastic about ramping up the plant to take advantage of a market for
energy efficient windows fueled by stimulus money. Vice-President Joe “Lunch
Box” Biden made an appearance to bless this green shoot of recovery.

But the stimulus has been a bust
when it comes to residential windows. There’s a great deal of paperwork involved
for a project that tight-fisted consumers may not yet be sold on. To take
advantage homeowners first have to be prepared to pay up-front for an energy
audit. The windows must be installed by qualified workers who, in Chicago, get
paid 22 dollars an hour. With few orders in the pipeline only about twenty UE
members are back to work building windows.

Unemployment benefits are
beginning to run out for the others. Armando Robles, president of UE Local 1110,
told the Washington Post, “There aren't other jobs for them in this
economy. ”The Post also talked to Jared Bernstein, Biden's chief economic
policy adviser, who was philosophical about the matter, “Some will succeed, some
will not; that's capitalism at work.”

Capitalism at work can’t even get
us energy efficient windows. How could we possibly entrust either the future of
our environment or the future of our jobs to them?

There’s a lot more to be said but
I don’t want to be mistaken for Joe Biden. We’ll save some for next time.